BOSTON — It's not the same exact day, but it's the same event, the same memories stirred, the same sadness then and the same hope now.

They will run the Boston Marathon Monday morning. As always, on Patriots' Day. Some will run the 26.2 miles, some will walk-run it, some won't quite go the distance. The elite runners will cross the finish line, still relatively fresh; others will almost literally crawl across.

We will never look at this amazing, singularly Boston-tinged sporting day in the same way. The Red Sox play at Fenway Park, a confined piece of grassy real estate. The marathon runners spread out, on the Hopkinton to Copley Square road.

Last year, the game and the race, the ballplayers and the runners, the responders and the survivors, became linked. It was that way the entire Red Sox season, right through the American League playoffs, and into the World Series.

The Red Sox did what they could to help. They made Fenway a grieving and celebratory place.

Before Sunday night's game against the Orioles, the Red Sox paid one last, unforgettable tribute to all the people from last year's Marathon, those who survived, who helped, the ones who died. We all know the story now. The faces are familiar. Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard, Officer Sean Collier, Lingzi Lu.

Eight members of Lu's family came from Shenyang, China, halfway around the world, to be here. They had been the missing family in all this, so far away. Now, they gathered around the microphone customarily used by kids who yell out "PLAY BALL!" This time, the words were belted out by the Lu family. A long journey for two words. And perhaps some kind of closure too.

Goodwill banners from all 50 states, every big-league ballclub and members of Congress filled the warning track, foul pole to foul pole.

The Red Sox know how to do this stuff, honoring and healing. In the last year, they've had to do too much of it, from one marathon to the next. The old mayor and the new mayor were here, and the outgoing governor. The UMass Minutemen Marching Band, accompanied by the bagpipes of the Stuart Highlanders, rendered a soulful national anthem.

There isn't much more the Red Sox can do, there aren't many stories untold about last year's marathon, although there still may be some hidden. Monday's will be the tearful marathon, the most precious, significant one ever run, and there will be a tremendous sense of relief when it's over. There will be smiles and tears at the end. This one wasn't about getting a wreath placed on your head.

We will get back to our lives that we call normal, as close as we can get back, in this crazy world. Simple things, like worrying about the Red Sox, the Bruins, and wondering what the Celtics and Patriots' draft day plans are, will take us to a better place, because it's not important in the scheme of things. It's just games. But games do help in bad times, as the Red Sox and Bruins showed last April.

Page 2 of 2 - There were tears again at Fenway Sunday night for the people who lost their lives, and the ones who lost limbs. Some tears you just can't hang out to dry.

We can always go back to our games for some reprieve. The Bruins and Red Wings. The Yankees come in Tuesday night. So go ahead, worry about Jackie Bradley Jr. and his 3-for-30 slump. In 50 at bats, he has struck out 18 times. He wasn't in the starting lineup Sunday, and may be on the I-95 Pawtucket express as soon as Shane Victorino returns, which could be Wednesday against the Yankees. Bradley could be spared if Mike Carp is released or traded. John Farrell was asked if he thought Bradley was progressing. "Overall, yes," he said. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

There was no ringing endorsement of Jake Peavy either when the Orioles knocked him around for three runs in the first inning. But it was early. Then it got late for Peavy, who got knocked out in the 6th, trailing 5-0. The fans finally got something to get excited about when Jonny Gomes bopped a three-run homer to cut the deficit to 2. The Red Sox tied it up at 5-5 in the seventh courtesy of an RBI single from David Ortiz and Jonathan Schoop's throwing error on a Mike Napoli grounder. The game had been moving at a brisk pace, the players probably aware that a morning game was gaining on them. Sleep would be at a premium.

See, there's always another game, another Boston Marathon. How good is that?